The Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (1st c. BC - 1st c. AD) is the author of a work bearing the title Fasti. This poem, a description of the Roman calendar in elegiacs, has influenced many poets throughout the ages. During the Renaissance, for example, the genre of the Neo-Latin calendar poem saw the light of day. The sixteenth-century ltalian humanist Ambrosius Novidius Fraccus belongs to this tradition with his masterpiece the Sacri Fasti, which aims to be a Christian counterpart of the ancient Fasti. A thorough analysis of a few passages from the Sacri Fasti can shed light on both the Ovidian characterand the Christian interpretation of this quite intricate work.
